A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift.

3/5 rating. 26 pages.

Book #25 of 2021. Read March 22, 2021.

This is a very short, scathingly satirical book where Jonathan recommends eating children to fix Ireland’s population problems.

As all great satire does, reading this macabre book just makes you laugh. Jonathan’s complete stoicism about his recommendation for basically setting up a veal farm for poor people’s kids is pretty entertaining. He assures us that there will be a plethora of different ways to prepare the kids for cooking, and we can use the odds and ends just as we use cattle parts currently.

Obviously, Jonathan is playing on the absurdity of 18th century Ireland. Unfortunately, I don’t know enough about that climate to likely understand all of the pokes at the establishment. If nothing else, though, my high school English teachers should be happy I returned to this story by one of the greats in the history of satire.

#amodestproposal #jonathanswift #satire #ireland

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